Once the museum is designed, it will display memorabilia of some of the all-time greats like C. K. Nayudu and Syed Mushtaq Ali.

New Delhi: Finally, work on a state-of-the-art cricket museum, to come up at a cost of Rs 10 crores at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai, is set to begin with an interim secretary and treasurer in place.

Adam Chadwick, curator of the London-based Lord’s Cricket Museum, has agreed to set up the museum and an advertisement to hire personnel would soon be placed in newspapers.The project was close to the heart of former BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale.

Once the museum is designed, it will display memorabilia of some of the all-time greats like C. K. Nayudu and Syed Mushtaq Ali.

The museum project was close to the heart of former BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale, and he had planned to have the museum completed latest by this October.

He said he was eagerly waiting for the IPL to get over in May so that work on the museum could begin.

“All the paperwork had been completed, and I was targeting September-October to complete the museum. I was just waiting to show the plan to the president [N. Srinivasan]," Jagdale, who resigned in the aftermath of the spot-fixing scandal, told MAIL TODAY. “I had planned that within 10 days after the IPL [which ended on May 26] all this would be completed, so that we could place advertisements in newspapers for hiring people, including a curator, who could take care of the museum, and an architect,” said the former Madhya Pradesh Ranji Trophy captain.

It is learnt that the London-based Chadwick visited India and discussed his deal with BCCI officials and museum committee head Anirudh Chaudhry at the start of the year. Before his visit, Chadwick had estimated that the per square metre cost would come to about £ 800 (Rs 73,500) and the total cost of the museum would be around £ 25,000 (Rs 2,299,000). Those figures could well have gone up.

Asked if Chadwick had agreed to work on the museum, Jagdale said: “Everything had been finalised. I was even ready to contribute some audio-video footage that I have. I had also spoken to some of the cricketers I memorabilia to the museum.”

Jagdale said letters had been sent to all the state cricket associations, and he had asked a BCCI functionary to write to the Australian cricket board and BBC too, asking them to contribute memorabilia.

“I personally was going to visit places like Baroda, Jamnagar and Patiala, which have a rich cricket history while the daughter of C. K. Nayudu and the son of Syed Mushtaq Ali had promised to donate clothes, bats and other items belonging to their legendary fathers,” he disclosed. “They had told me that I could collect the items any time.”

But the fixing scandal broke out on May 16, and all BCCI projects were put on hold. Now, with an interim secretary and treasurer in place, work will start now.

Jagdale rued that had the first floor of the Cricket Centre, the building that houses the BCCI and Mumbai Cricket Association headquarters, been cleared earlier, the museum would have been completed by now.